School: St. Cronan's Longford Wood, An Teampoll Mór (roll number 6662)

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1. The Potato Crop (continued)

   

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   The old people tell us that many years ago all potatoes used be sown in ridges. They had a strange way of manuring the potatoes in ridges also. They stripped a light skin off a piece of pasture land; they dried this thoroughly in the sun and wind and then burned it. They spread the ashes as manure over the ridges in which the potatoes were sown.

   Sowing potatoes in ridges meant very hard work; it had to be all done with a spade; the "trenching" of the ridges - this meant digging a furrow between the ridges and shovelling the clay on to the ridge to cover the potatoes - was always looked upon as work for a very strong man. Very little spade-work is done on the farms in this district at present, though the spade is still used in small gardens.

   Some farmers 'box' their seed potatoes that is they pick potatoes about the size of a hen-egg when they are digging them in the autumn; they place these in specially made

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Topics

   1. activities
      1. economic activities
         1. agriculture (~2,659)
            1. potatoes (~2,701)

   Language

   English

   Collector

   Paddy Treacy

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Clonakenny, Co. Tipperary

   Informant

   James Treacy

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Shanacloon, Co. Tipperary